[face=SPIonic]<br />po/lemoj pa/ntwn me\n path/r e)sti, pa/ntwn de\ basileu/j, kai\ tou\j me\n qeou\j e)/deice, tou\j de\ a)nqrw/pouj: tou\j me\n dou/louj e)poi/hse, tou\j de\ e)leuqe/rouj.[/face]<br /><br />"War is the father of all and the king of all, and shows/makes some gods and some humans; some it makes slaves, some free."<br /><br />It's not entirely clear what exactly Heraclitus means by "war" here - he's called "the dark/obscure one" for more than just his gloomy outlook - but it appears to be something like a personification of the forces of change or chaos.

Last edited by annis on Sat Oct 11, 2003 11:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[quote author=Koala link=board=13;threadid=164;start=0#2530 date=1059820111]<br />“it appears to be something like a personification of the forces of change”<br /><br />… I agree – one might compare:<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Certainly similar in one sense, but while Heraclitus' [face=SPIonic]po/lemoj[/face] may be a personification of change, I doubt very much it's a personification with goals, unlike the Christian God, who has a Plan.

From the era when war was a daily event between small towns and cities, which changed fates of many people quite frequently, I would guess. (Or a bit exaggerated rhetoric expression for an epic event?)<br />

My guess would be that he says what he means (although that might be too literal an interpretation for a Greek author. ) <br /><br />I would say that these lines are praising a personification of war itself.

I don't know. Certainly it doesn't make sense to my mindset, but the ancient Greeks thought differently than we do; to them, as far as I know, war was something to be praised. <br /><br />I am also not sure why I would feel that the lines are spoken in praise of war (rather than against it, say.) It may be that the context tells you. That was just the sense I had of them when I read them; a praise of war as that great force which raises some up and throws others down.

[quote author=Keesa link=board=13;threadid=164;start=0#6535 date=1064321572]<br />I don't know. Certainly it doesn't make sense to my mindset, but the ancient Greeks thought differently than we do; to them, as far as I know, war was something to be praised. [/quote]<br /><br />And Heraclitus was different from most Greeks, too. <br /><br />Bill Harris has an early draft of the sayings of Heraclitus with Greek and commentary in a nice hefty PDF file (http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/heraclitus.pdf) which is pretty interesting reading. I think taking his work as a whole would make it hard to say he was praising war. Praising does not seem part of his outlook.<br />

[quote="Keesa"]Which is why I couldn't be sure; I've never read Heraclitus. :-[[/quote = jaycat] You would be hard put to read him since so little of his words have been preserved. It is clear he wrote a scroll but what order the fragments have been arranged in depends on the interpretations of the scholars who write about him. Some see him as a naturalist like the early Milesians, some see him as a cosmologist, some see him as "moralist". The crux of the issue is the status of the first fragment on the scroll and what people make of the term "logos". I think he is a "moralist" who uses examples from nature to make his point. But there is plenty of room for disagreement. Only scholar that I know who supports with arguments the status of Herakleitos as a "moralist" is Joseph Owens in his article in the volume "A Tribute to Etienne Gilson". I have never read a refutation of his convincing arguments nor is the article often mentioned if at all in the bibliographies of many of the scholars that treat Herakleitos whether in histories of philosophy or in monographs. There is definitely a snob issue here. Hope this is of some help.
jaycat